Biden has his "Deplorables" Moment

Almost every losing presidential campaign has that moment that everyone identifies as the point where its chances flamed out.

There was the Dukakis tank video in 1988, the Ford "no Soviet domination moment" in 1976, and the "basket full of deplorables" comment by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Now 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has just delivered a speech in Pittsburgh where he not only blamed President Trump for the months of rioting in several American cities, but he also blamed a key portion of the president's supporters and voters.

Here is the line that Biden delivered that will live in infamy:

"... his (President Trump's) failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is."

Got that MAGA voters? Joe Biden is calling you an "armed militia," which is really close to being smeared as domestic terrorists. And this is all while not mentioning the true domestic terror group ANTIFA, which has been behind so much of this urban violence.

I wonder how the 99.999% of Trump voters who haven't been near Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York City or any of the other major blue city riots think about that.

But unlike Hillary's gaffe and Mitt Romney's foolish "47%" statement in 2012, Biden's likely fatal bashing of the voters is purposely being made in public in what might be the worst move in presidential campaign history.

Pushing Biden's narrative is probably the heaviest factual lift, which is nice way of describing a detestable lie, that the Biden campaign and the Democrats have attempted in all the years of the Trump presidency. And that's saying something from the party that put together a ridiculous Russian collusion mania, and a man who still claims he decided to run for president based on the oft-debunked lie that President Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists "very fine people."

Just to briefly refute this latest egregious falsehood, let's look at the facts in easy bullet point form:

-The riots, looting, and other violence have been going on for months in America, almost entirely in cities and states controlled by the Democrats. Because of that, Democrats and most of the mainstream news media downplayed the violent incidents or even denied they were occurring at all. This "pretend it isn't happening" approach was best exemplified during an impromptu interview with Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler, during which he called reports of the sustained riots in Portland a "myth." That was just a month ago when the riots in that city had already been raging for more than 60 nights in a row. During this period, and as recently as just a week ago, leading Democrats and their media allies insisted the rioting was really just "peaceful protests."

-When President Trump did send in a small number of Department of Homeland Security agents to protect the federal courthouse in Portland, House Speaker and leading Democrat Nancy Pelosi called them "stormtroopers," (as the grandson of someone who's entire family was wiped out by the real Nazi stormtroopers, this statement by Pelosi was more than shocking).

-During the just-completed Democratic National Convention, the riots were never mentioned, let alone blamed on President Trump. Does anyone believe that if the Democrats really believed this president were responsible for the violence they would have refrained from clearly and regularly blaming him for them before and during the convention? The idea that they wouldn't is beyond laughable.

-There is strong evidence leading Democrats were encouraging the violence more than just by mislabeling it as peaceful protest. Paid Biden campaign staffers were caught donating money to bail out violent rioters who had been arrested this spring in Minneapolis. Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris did them one better, by taking to her Twitter feed earlier this year to urge people to donate to a fund bailing out and providing other legal cover for rioters. This takes on an added sense of outrage considering the fact that one of the suspects in Saturday night's fatal shooting of a Trump supporter in Portland was arrested for carrying a loaded gun to a July Portland rally that got out of hand, but was quickly bailed out and released.

-As President Trump repeatedly offered to send in federal aid to the Democrat-run cities and states, the mayors and governors of those states not only refused the help but publicly rebuked the president for making the offer. This trend continues even now, as Portland mayor Ted Wheeler publicly posted his latest rejection letter to President Trump on Friday, and Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers publicly urged the president not to visit riot-devastated Kenosha earlier today. This public rejectionism stands in stark contrast to then-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's very warm welcome for then-President Barack Obama when he visited Christie's Hurricane Sandy-ravaged state just before the 2012 election. Christie had the maturity and decency to ignore the fact that the visit angered the Mitt Romney campaign, knowing he needed to do as much as he could to get as much help to his people.

In short, the facts speak for themselves. It's the Democrats and their elected leaders who own the blame for the violence in their cities, and just about all of America's voters know it.

Of course, it isn't just the falsehoods behind the accusation that make Biden's libel so ill-advised. The fiercely anti-Trump voters will eat it up regardless, and perhaps a few naive moderates might believe it as well.

The real mistake is in how much this baseless attack will fire up Trump's supporters from now through the next nine weeks until Election Day. When Hillary's "deplorables" comment leaked out, millions of Trump fans began using the word as a badge of pride. From that point on, the 2016 election was intensely personal for them and that truly helped Trump over the finish line to victory.

Biden has never sparked the kind of seething hatred many Trump supporters had for Clinton. But now, Joe has crossed a line the deplorables will never forgive him for. Just in the hours since excerpts of his speech were released, Trump supporters have been coming out of the woodwork on social media to blast him. The already big enthusiasm gap between emboldened Trump and meek Biden voters is likely to grow even more.

Trump voters who had seemed a little shy compared to 2016, either because of the violent threats against them or just the continuing COVID-19 lockdowns, seem a lot less shy right now. This should show up in the polls in the coming weeks, but this goes beyond the polls. The mood and energy of the nation seems decidedly to have shifted in favor of the president's re-election ever since the Republican Convention began last week.

Now, in the days since the convention wrapped up, Biden and the Democrats have foolishly given Trump supporters an added incentive to become more vocal and active.

Judging by the minuscule crowd that showed up for the Biden speech and the rambling on to other non riot-related topics the former vice president moved on to, this won't even remotely fire up Democrats in a similar way.

As is usually the case, Biden would have done better by not saying anything at all.